02615cam a22002657 4500001000600000003000500006005001700011008004100028100002200069245019500091260006600286490004100352500001900393520132000412530006101732538007201793538003601865690007101901690016201972700002402134710004202158830007602200856003702276856003602313w4603NBER20161209094225.0161209s1993 mau||||fs|||| 000 0 eng d1 aAghion, Philippe.10aUncovering Some Causal Relationships between Productivity Growth and the Structure of Economic Fluctuationsh[electronic resource]:bA Tentative Survey /cPhilippe Aghion, Gilles Saint-Paul. aCambridge, Mass.bNational Bureau of Economic Researchc1993.1 aNBER working paper seriesvno. w4603 aDecember 1993.3 aThis paper discusses recent theoretical and empirical work on the interactions between growth and business cycles. One may distinguish two very different types of approaches to the problem of the influence of macroeconomic fluctuations on long-run growth. In the first type of approach, which relies on learning by doing mechanisms or aggregate demand externalities, productivity growth and direct production activities are complements. An expansion therefore has a positive long-run effect on total factor productivity. In the second type of approach, hereafter labeled 'opportunity cost or 'learning-by-doing', productivity growth and production activities are substitutes. The opportunity cost of some productivity improving activities falls in a recession, which has a long-run positive impact on output. This does not mean, however, that recessions should on average last longer or be more frequent, since the expectation of future recessions reduces today's incentives for productivity growth. We also briefly discuss some empirical work which is mildly supportive of the opportunity cost approach, while showing that it can be reconciled with the observed pro-cyclical behavior of measured total factor productivity. We also describe some theoretical work on the effects of growth on business cycles. aHardcopy version available to institutional subscribers. aSystem requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files. aMode of access: World Wide Web. 7aD21 - Firm Behavior: Theory2Journal of Economic Literature class. 7aD24 - Production • Cost • Capital • Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity • Capacity2Journal of Economic Literature class.1 aSaint-Paul, Gilles.2 aNational Bureau of Economic Research. 0aWorking Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research)vno. w4603.4 uhttp://www.nber.org/papers/w460341uhttp://dx.doi.org/10.3386/w4603